Paul Prattles On

Welcome Back! We had an another exciting weekend of College Football!  The Big Ten had a stellar debut weekend, with an oddity in the West division: if you list the teams alphabetically, the ones listed first all lost, while those at the end all won!  We had 47 games, so let's get to the reviews.  Please understand that future opponents are apt to change at a moment's notice. Thursday, October 22 Appalachian State crushed Arkansas State 45-17.  The Mountaineers are 1 of 3 undefeated Sun Belt Conference teams, but they have only played 1 game, and trail CCU (3-0) in the East division.  At 1-2, the Red Wolves are in 3rd place behind 1st place S Alabama, which is 2-0.  Ark St is scheduled to host Troy while App St travels to ULM. Friday, October 23 FIU lost to Jacksonville State 19-10, becoming the 1st FBS team to lose to an FCS team in 2020.  The Panthers have actually played better against their 2 FBS opponents so far, losing by 2 to Liberty and by 3 ...

Welcome Back! Once again, for the 2nd week in a row, I was pretty miserable with my picks.  I went 17-11, or 60.7%, which is WAY below the standard I have set for myself, though it was a slight improvement from the week before.  Overall, I am now 119-49, or 70.8%, a drop of more than 2.1% from last week!  My goal every year is to finish at or above 80%, though I've never actually achieved that, but I almost always finish above 75%.  Last year I finished at 76.5% for the regular season, and 76.2% overall, which isn't too shabby.   I'm not sure why I have been so off so far this year, but I have a few theories.  The first is that there are fewer "gimme" games on which to fatten up my percentage, no Arkansas vs. Charleston Southern, for example, and more games between teams that are roughly equal, i.e. conference games.  This makes predicting a little more difficult.  Another possibility, which is related to the first, is that there have been fe...

Welcome Back! Here at Odds and Ends, I plan to look at some stats, trends, storylines, etc. as they play out.  I will also give my opinion on some issues, but you can take that for what it's worth.  In the past, I have usually listed all the teams that reach bowl eligibility, and those that have been eliminated, but since the NCAA has done away with any requirements, that feature will not appear this year.   LIR Let's start with the Last Interception Race (LIR).  In this space, I will be chronicling who has the most attempts without an interception.  This is a lot harder to keep up with with teams playing so sporadically!  After week 7, here are the top 5: 1. Tyrell Pigrome, WKU- 105 2. Sam Hartman, WF- 100 3. Skylar Thompson, Kan St- 64 4. Lowell Narcisse, UTSA- 56 5. Joey Yellen, Pitt- 49 Trevor Lawrence, last week's #1 (at 116), and Stetson Bennett (#3) both threw INTs last week to drop out of the rankings.  Pigrome and Thompson didn't play. I ...

Welcome Back! I had quite a bit of movement in the Rankings this week, though most teams moved only 1 or 2 spots.  The Big Ten and Mountain West begin play this week, so I expect a lot more movement next week, as 48 games are scheduled (before any postponements/cancellations) as opposed to the 25-35 of the last 2-3 weeks. I should explain that I use a point system to come up with my preseason rankings, and as the season goes on, I will drop these off.  In the past, I have done these one by one, but with the staggered starts this year, I may wait until all conferences have started playing and then drop them by 2 or 3, maybe even 4, at a time.  The Pac 12  has announced that they will start games the week of November 7, so I may want to wait until mid-November before dropping these, giving all teams a body of work, but maybe I'll just drop them all at once sometime in November.  Anyway, here are the teams that moved the most this week: FSU +3 West Virginia +3 Sout...